Like Ron Atkinson in zip-up bondage kecks, former Clash manager Bernie Rhodes dropped the N-word on Wednesday night. The event was Clash Culture, a fashion show held at the London's Cochrane Theatre to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Clash's White Riot tour. What could have been a simple symposium to trade shirt-stencilling tips was soured somewhat by the presence of Clash manager and "punk philosopher" Bernie Rhodes.

Rhodes was in no mood to sit still in his museum cabinet. He began by laying into Julian Temple's new film about Joe Strummer, The Future is Written, describing it as "crap - a film made by a public schoolboy about another public schoolboy" and adding, "They've turned Joe into a hippie because they want another John Lennon." All very punk rock, of course, but Rhodes wasn't finished. During a rambling tangent on the Iraq war, Rhodes dropped the bombshell that "If you want to sort out crime in London, sort out the niggers in Peckham." Following catcalls and heckles from the audience, the organisers brought up the house lights, and brought the night to an early close.

Rhodes is, of course, a nasty old man, one who's long lost the ability to draw a line between punk's libertarian rhetoric and the politics of an embittered old BNP stooge. Herein lies the problem about getting rose-tinted about punk, though. Punk could be morally ambiguous, because its practitioners realised there was power in that ambiguity. Sure, the Clash never wore Swastika armbands, but they were quick to throw their lot in with Marxist revolutionaries and gun-runners, proving war wasn't always wrong so long as it came in a nice beret.

Ultimately, though, you have to judge a band on their actions, not their pose. The Clash were huge reggae fans and dedicated multiculturalists, and you'd think that if Joe Strummer were 18 today, it's nice to think he'd be hanging around with the kids in Peckham, not demonising them. Perhaps Rhodes' outburst is a lesson for all of us who cherry-pick history. The problem with nostalgia, you see, is that the past has a habit of coming back rather more ugly than you'd wish to recall it.